dangermousie: (EoE: YR by meganbmoore)
[personal profile] dangermousie
Is there a single female character on Worlds Within who is NOT awesome? It doesn't feel like a typical Korean drama in its attitudes at all - these women are not self-sacrificing saints - they are capable of sacrifice to the same degree as men, but they are ambitious, strong-willed, knowing what they want. And not a single one has a life which solely revolves around a man.

We have our heroine (oooh, I bet the fangirls hated her) who is a dedicated, driven perfectionist of a professional, who is pretty good, and who unapologetically declares to the hero she has no desire to have kids because it would interfere with her career and that she wants to keep their relationship a secret at work because office gossip might be detrimental to their careers. This is not portrayed as at all wrong or bad on her part (it is made clear that it is something that might be a problematic difference of opinion in a relationship later but that is an entirely different thing!). Did I mention that the heroine tells the hero she prefers compliments on her shots to compliments on her personality? And that a large part of the reason they click so well is because they talk about their work together and he is always so proud when he sees her do well.

We have a veteran star actress who has had multiple marriages and divorces (and this is not viewed as making her awful), who is a consummate professional, insisting on shooting a scene right after she hears her mother is dead, because there is no other time. She likes working with the heroine even despite the fact that heroine and she have personality clashes, because she respects the heroine's smarts. She is good friends with the hero without any cougarishness on her part and takes back an old old flame on the condition he will not overly intrude on her life and not care if she goes out with others sometimes.

We have a famous talented and much-wanted screenwriter, who is 40 and single, and it is not portrayed as a lack on her part - poor thing, better off with a man. No, she is fulfilled and needs nothing else.

We have the mothers of hero and heroine, neither of whom is demonized and both of whom have, in their vastly different ways, carved out tolerable lives for themselves in some not ideal circumstances.

We have the tough young assistant director who can outwork a lot of men, swears and drinks like a sailor.

We have two senior veteran actresses who are professional and very tough.

And we have my favorite secondary female character, a brand new actress who got her role of a lifetime (starring role in a period drama made by a director all of whose dramas hit insane ratings) by not just talent but dogged persistence in hounding the director until he gave her a chance to show whether she is qualified, and insane work ethic (she insists on doing her own stunts). She is forthright, cheerful and unabashedly interested in the director 'that way' - the best part is she chases him not in any sort of a meek "I am going to weep if you don't like me" kind of way, but in a bulldozer (yet non-crazy) fashion of "if you don't like me, I am not going to mope as it's your loss, but since I like you, I see no point in concealing my feelings and not going for what I want." The best part is when they end up sleeping together and he (because he has rather a fear of emotional connections, though it's clear to anyone he's totally fallen for her) tells her "just because we slept together once, doesn't mean we have anything between us" and...she grins and says "OK" and leaves and you can see him be totally taken aback. That was awesome. Oh, and did I mention the below scene happens after his 'oh it was all totally meaningless' declaration? Yeah, keep telling yourself that :P



The girl is a Mountie - she always gets her man!

I really really should be in bed! zzzzz...

Date: 2009-08-16 08:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] salimbol.livejournal.com
This actually sounds pretty damn awesome, I have to say. I always approach (non-historical) kdramas with extreme caution just because of how they typically treat their female characters and the narrow range of roles they allow them, so this sounds like a breath of fresh air.

Date: 2009-08-16 10:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eraeos.livejournal.com
Yes, I agree with you. But, unfortunately but predictably, WW did pretty badly in the ratings. Isn't The Man Who Can't Get Married (based on the Japanese manga of the same name, of course) doing badly rating-wise as well? I remember reading an article exploring why that was, one of the reasons being that dramas along the vein of TMWCGM lack archetypal roles in popular, trendy kdramas, i.e. Brilliant Legacy.

Date: 2009-08-17 03:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] salimbol.livejournal.com
Huff puff, that's typical! How sad. I really enjoyed The Man Who Can't Get Married jdrama (not realising that it was based on a manga; obviously, I need to track that manga down :-). There were so many awesome characters in that (and an exceptionally cute dog named Ken-chan, though he may not have been in the source material), but I guess they couldn't be pigeonholed easily.

Date: 2009-08-17 03:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangermousie.livejournal.com
A lot of atypical kdramas don't do well, true - one of my other favorites, Mawang, also did badly because of that. I wonder if it's like arthouse v. popular movies in the US - there is a small and rabid audience for the former but they would never get the success of the latter (and both forms should exist, true).

I enjoyed BL a lot but I ended up running out of steam by the end and I don't think I will ever really rewatch it or anything. It was well-made but it didn't really transcend anything, you know? (Yeah, yeah, I sound pretentious :P)

Date: 2009-08-17 03:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangermousie.livejournal.com
I don't really mind the traditional gender roles in a lot of kdramas (seeing that I love Bollywood and Victorian lit, that is nothing new to me) but this is the first time I have seen female character(s) I can really relate to, in a kdrama.

Date: 2009-08-18 07:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] salimbol.livejournal.com
Hmm, I don't know if they'd bother me as much if I hadn't seen so many jdramas and twdramas which allowed their women to 'step outside the box'; the world of kdramas seems positively antiquated in comparison :-). But I very definitely want to check this one out; you've really whetted my curiousity about it.

Date: 2009-08-16 10:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eraeos.livejournal.com
Ah... that's yet another tv show-to-watch to add to my ever-growing list of things-to-do. I need time, damn it! :P

in a bulldozer (yet non-crazy) fashion of "if you don't like me, I am not going to mope as it's your loss, but since I like you, I see no point in concealing my feelings and not going for what I want."
The best kind of chasing! I see too many females chasing the desired male in either the meek-and-weepy or the crazy-and-rabid way in kdramas -- drives me nuts every time. I just end up wanting to shake the character (and the writer).

Date: 2009-08-17 03:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dangermousie.livejournal.com
Yeah - I keep wondering where the crazy secondary females come from, in part - have they been brought up by wolves? But then I see writeups about crazy fan behavior toward celebrities and I think ... hmmm, if you transposed it to chasing a normal person, I could see where they get it :P

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